Writing is F***** hard

I'm writing a novel. Sounds exciting doesn't  it? However it is far more intimidating than I ever imagined.

It's like I learned how to ski in my back yard with homemade gear. In my confident enthusiasm I entered a race only to discover none of my equipment is workable and I've been doing it all wrong.

English is a complicated language with lots of technical parts I still don't understand. When I took a College English course I had to use a dictionary to figure out the terms they discussed. Gerunds, dangling participles, split infinitives. I still get adverbs and adjectives mixed up. Oh yeah adjectives end in ly -avoid using them.

It has twelve tenses and conditionals that are maddening to untangle. "He would, if he could have done otherwise but he knew he shouldn't" clunky, but talk about confusing to a foreigner.

I can't write a novel with all these things getting in the way. I'm clueless. I have a story,inspiration and the drive to write thousands of words but what am I going to do with those rules. They come crashing down on me and I'm lost.

Don't use passive verbs, no flashbacks, avoid exposition, don't use the word was. The story is told in the first person past tense, I have to the use was. Every time the word pops up I cringe: it's forbidden.

In frustration I said screw it, I'll write what feels right but again, if I'm going to do this novel for real, there are THE RULES.